Scaretails

I start with a disclaimer: the account of facts I’m going to give could sound a bit rough to some of you, or funny to others. It depends on the points of view and on your guts.

It all began when something happened to a lady cat. Once upon a time, in my hometown, Latina, there was my family cat, but now she has no fixed abode. She is now the neighbourhood matriarch, high representative of all the neighbourhood felines, with one main purpose in life: make fun of all the leashed dogs, unlucky enough to pass through, while every human being keep falling in love with her. But one day, fate played a bad joke on her, and it happened that one of the very men so fond of her flattened her tail with his car’s wheel. Clarissa, this high-sounding name of the feline, was back home with her tail broken in two halves (I wasn’t there, roaming I don’t know where in Europe at the time). Clarissa is not a vet inclined cat, so we hadn’t thought even for a second to take her to be visited. She went on living as if nothing had happened, wandering and jumping and exploring the world a san old cat can do, and everybody got used to that sight. Until one day a new weird thing happened before my mother’s astounded eyes (who luckily is a nurse, used to such a brutal scenes) : she jumped lightly on a wall, and in that very moment her tail breaks for good, one of the two halves falling on the ground. Now, I don’t know exactly how to describe the part that’s left of her poor back side: a sort of little black furry stump that moves by himself, and I think she’s not aware that she has it. I can say that, because sometimes our other younger cat (a little irksome girl to the older grumpy one) has fun playing with what remains of the tail, and Clarissa never revolts. We promptly grasped that she might have lost any perception in that area. Moral of the story: I admire Clarissa’s pride and bearing, in spite of our laughter we can’t restrain looking at her short tail’s awkward movements. But maybe she doesn’t realize, and that would be a blessing.

Clarissa!

Second ill-fated-tail cat: Frida. This pretty youngster came to our home with her tail cut in two already. The two parts compose a perfect right-angle. She is a very peaceful cat, so we can always bring her to the vet without any logistic issue. As any worried pet owner would do, we went at once to the doctor, who, for a fair (fair to him) sum, gave us this laudable and beyond any imagination diagnosis: maybe she was born like that, maybe somebody closed her tail somewhere when she was a kitten, maybe her own mother made a movement that broke it… Well, my imagination could have given a better, and free, explanation. Anyways, nature blessed her with a fur so thick that the this flaw grew more and more unnoticeable. Moral of the story: everybody has his own little bugs, but then you end up learning how to live with them, and finally they just become your own features.

Frida & Leo

Third ill-fated-tail cat: Leo. Leo is the king of this house. Handsome, big, heavy, sweet… and an eejit! Whenever he goes out to do battle or fighting a duel with another cat, he always ends up getting a good hiding. Few days ago, he came back home with his tail completely flabby. He would drag it along, and for a moment I almost thought of letting him go about in my room, using him as a dusting brush. He is definitely not a vet fellow, so we choosed to wait and see what would happen. The next day he was lifting and wagging his tail has if nothing had happened. Moral of the story: scaremongering is never a good option.